在“9·11”事件20周年临近之际，美国匆匆结束其在阿富汗的长期占领，狼狈仓皇撤离，在美国内及其盟国和国际上引起强烈反应。伴随着拜登支持率的一路下滑，拜登政府的后续应对、美国盟友的反应措施、阿富汗的局势发展及相关国家的态度、中亚地区的地缘局势等都成为了国际热议话题。
一、拜登政府从阿富汗的仓皇撤离为国内共和党提供了攻击他的政治资本，拜登的支持率急速下滑。然而，在这个过程中，共和党却刻意避免提及自己对造成阿富汗目前局势不可推卸的责任。But any sense that the US is free of consequences of a war in which it bled for 20 years is belied by the history of a country that exacts a fierce price from its former occupiers. And the trauma of the two weeks since the fall of Kabul have already left an indelible mark on Joe Biden’s presidency, Washington’s bitter politics and the reputation of America among its disappointed allies.Biden can lay claim to having the guts to finally end a war that had long been lost but outlived the presidencies of three predecessors. This may resonate more widely in the future among voters than the Beltway critics of his withdrawal may appreciate. And the crush of other domestic challenges, including a worsening pandemic, could soon redirect the rare spotlight from what was until a few months ago often referred to as the “forgotten war.”But the pandemonium of the US retreat -- a humbling exercise that confounded everything Biden promised about a stable, honorable US exit -- stained the aura of competence he sold to the country in the last election and raised questions about his leadership, candor and capacity going forward to quell the nation’s multiple crises. While his defenders claim he was being unfairly blamed for two decades of strategic failures in Afghanistan, the President surely authored his own postscript of incompetence and didn’t predict the shockingly rapid collapse of the Afghan state and army.（Aug 31, 2021, CNN, America’s Afghan war is over but the battle for Biden’s legacy is only just beginning）John Bolton, a former national security adviser under Trump and an opponent of withdrawal, believes the episode will be “damaging” to the president and could undermine his agenda. “If you look at this withdrawal as the debacle it’s very widely viewed as, that’s Biden’s mistake and that’s going to hurt him,” he said.“Democrats in Congress are very worried that the perception of incompetence will spill over into domestic affairs and the fate of the $3.5tn package and any number of other things could be jeopardized. The swing-district Democrats in the House and some in the Senate are saying this is one more piece of evidence that we’re going to be in real trouble next year if we just blindly follow the White House leadership on this.A blitz of attack ads suggest that Republicans believe they have finally found Biden’s Achilles’ heel. Michael Steel, who was a spokesperson for former House speaker John Boehner, said: “I’m sure the White House hopes that legislative successes this fall will allow them to ‘right the ship’, but nothing will erase the searing images from Kabul over the past weeks, or the damage done to America’s credibility.”Some Democrats have also expressed frustration at the botched withdrawal, and three Democratic-led Senate committees have pledged to investigate “failures”, a rare rebuke for the president from his own party. Biden will also have to contend with the resettlement of thousands of Afghan refugees, a potentially incendiary issue.(Sep 4, 2021, the Guardian, Bruised Biden tries to turn the page after US debacle in Afghanistan)二、拜登试图为他的决定做出解释，包括推责特朗普、阿富汗军民，以及其他各种因素。但是世界各地仍有不少声音，包括美国国内媒体，认为虽然有不少拜登无法控制的因素在其中，但是拜登嘴上说承担责任、实则甩锅的行为也是不负责任的。The President said he takes responsibility for the decision to withdraw at the end of August, but he also blamed his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, for signing on to an earlier agreement with the Taliban for a US withdrawal on May 1.“My predecessor, the former President, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove US troops May 1, just months after I was inaugurated. It included no requirement that the Taliban work out a cooperative government arrangement with the Afghan government,” Biden said.“But it did authorize the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those that just took control of Afghanistan. By the time I came into office, the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001.”(Aug 31, 2021, CNN, Biden gives a defiant defense of the withdrawal from Afghanistan: ‘I was not extending a forever exit’)But Biden laid much of the blame on the Afghan security forces, as well as the Trump administration, for the situation that unfolded in Afghanistan in recent months. Biden said that he instructed his national security team to prepare “for every eventuality.” “We were ready,” Biden said, referring to the quick collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban, noting that Afghan security forces “did not hold on as long as we expected.” Biden’s comments, though, conflicted with the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, who said there was no intelligence that the Afghan government would collapse so soon.At a press briefing following Biden’s speech, White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged “we all had the expectation” Afghan security forces would put up a tougher fight against advancing Taliban forces as the withdrawal deadline approached. Still, Biden remained steadfast on the departure date. (Sep 1, 2021, Foxnews, Defiant Biden takes ‘responsibility’ for decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, touts mission success)
三、美国撤离中不顾大批北约成员国人员和为其工作的阿富汗人，使其欧洲盟友感到心寒，并且开始重新考虑，是否应该还像以前一样惟美国之命是从，是否应该重新考虑与美国的防务安排，甚至加速推进组建欧盟防务部队。The question at the heart of these discussions is whether the botched withdrawal is a failure serious enough to merit a rethinking of European-American defense arrangements. The Afghan war was a NATO operation, involving the core of the trans-Atlantic alliance system that dates from the Cold War. American fecklessness has left European leaders infuriated. In Germany, Armin Laschet, who is running to replace his Christian Democratic colleague Angela Merkel as chancellor in national elections this month, speaks of “the greatest debacle NATO has suffered since its founding.”Mr. Laschet’s assessment reflects more than election-season passions. It is shared in other countries. Bidenesque incompetence comes atop four years of Trumpian contempt. As Adrien Jaulmes, a French war correspondent, recently put it, Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have together sent “a message to the allies and adversaries of the United States that Washington’s commitments are only commitments for so long.”Pro-European Union politicians generally look to move governing responsibilities from national capitals to Brussels. The more ambitious among them even seek a measure of military autonomy for the bloc. That would require a rethinking of NATO operating procedures and would almost inevitably bring a loosening of ties with the United States, although E.U. leaders generally deny this when within earshot of Americans.But in the wake of the Afghan debacle, E.U. leaders have begun to air such ambitions. This week, Bernard Guetta, a member of the European Parliament from the party of President Emmanuel Macron of France, called on Europeans to find a geostrategic substitute for an increasingly inward-looking United States. Mr. Macron shows signs of wanting to use recent blunders as a pretext for deploying de-Americanized European fighting units. He told a conference in Baghdad in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Kabul that France would keep its terror-fighting forces in Iraq “no matter what the Americans do.”Over the past 20 years, Europeans have watched as the United States first led Europe into wars Europe did not want to fight, and then succumbed to a passionate anti-elite politics that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. Frustration is to be expected. The Afghanistan collapse will surely sharpen it.(Sep 3, 2021, NYTimes, Europe Doesn’t Want to Fight America’s Battles Anymore)四、塔利班虽然重新掌控阿富汗，但目前局势仍不太平。潘杰希尔山谷里的反塔利班势力的存在以及各地的示威，都表明塔利班想要统治阿富汗这个美国留下的烂摊子，仍需要克服很多困难。Fighting was reported between the Taliban and resistance forces in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, the last region of the country holding out against the armed group.A Taliban source said fighting was continuing in Panjshir but the advance had been slowed by landmines placed on the road to the capital Bazarak and the provincial governor’s compound. “Demining and offensives are both going on at the same time,” the source said.Facing the challenge of morphing from rebels to rulers, the Taliban appears determined to snuff out the Panjshir resistance before announcing who will lead the country in the aftermath of Monday’s US troop withdrawal, which was supposed to end two decades of war.But Panjshir, which held out for nearly a decade against the Soviet Union’s occupation and also the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, is stubbornly holding out.(Sep 4, 2021, Al Jazeera, Taliban surrounds Panjshir Valley as resistance holds)Afghan protesters defied the Taliban on Thursday, wielding the national flag in a nascent symbol of resistance as the militant group’s rule faced a growing number of early challenges.While the country settled uneasily into its new life, the Taliban celebrated independence day for “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” — marking the occasion with a declaration of victory over the United States and a reassertion of their regime.But in Kabul and beyond, the challenges were mounting in the wake of the Taliban’s rapid takeover: Thousands continued to defy warnings and beatings to seek evacuation via the capital’s airport, a small and scattered opposition emerged in the form of protests and a potential armed rebellion, and the country’s dire economic situation prompted warnings of a humanitarian crisis.The demonstrations came as Afghans mark the Independence Day holiday that commemorates the 1919 treaty that ended British rule.In the city of Asadabad, in northeastern Kunar province, a group of people celebrating Independence Day was carrying the country’s national flag and chanting, “Long live Afghanistan,” when it was fired at by the Taliban, local resident Abdul Khanan told NBC News.(Aug 19, 2021, NBC News， Protests pose early challenge as Taliban assert rule over uneasy Afghanistan)五、中国批评拜登政府不负责任的撤离，同时抨击美国在阿富汗的二十年只给阿富汗人民带来了灾难。未来，中国愿意与阿富汗各界展开合作，实现共赢，为双方人民创造福祉。In this Afghanistan issue, I joined the international efforts to promote really constructively the peace reconstruction and future political structure of the country, so that we can really with other countries effectively fight terrorism and to make sure the future of Afghanistan will not be the safe haven for the growth of the terrorism, and also will not be the threat for neighboring nations in the region and internationally. We are in this ongoing process.The situation really show that on the international arena, to use power politics, to use military means, to solve the problem, especially in hot spots like Afghanistan, is not the way to do it. It causes more problems than it solves. For 20 years, some country like United States, they want to impose the model of their own in their own country upon other sovereign countries. This approach, this way, it’s the root of what in their mind in dealing with the international affairs, in handling the hot spots, causes so much disasters and troubles, not only in the handling of the Afghanistan issue, but also in handling other hot spots. And to deal with the regional conflicts and in other international affairs in general, we should all remember the lessons United States have in this issue and really come back to the United Nations Charter, and based on core aims and purpose of the United Nations Charter, based on the international multilateral approach, and also really from both the policy and practice, respect the sovereignty, the territorial integrity, and independence of sovereign states, and always remember and refrain from intervening into internal affairs of a sovereign state is a very important principle in dealing with the issues like this. （Aug 23, 2021, Guancha.com 外交部阿富汗事务特使岳晓勇专访）“US President [Joe] Biden said the US’ mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building, and it’s true,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Tuesday, slamming the US for leaving turbulence and chaos wherever it goes. “The role of US lies in destruction, not construction.”“The US started the war in Afghanistan in the name of fighting terrorism. But has it won? In the past 20 years, the number of terror groups in the country has increased from single digits to more than 20, with more than 100,000 Afghan people killed or wounded and more than 10 million people displaced. Has the US brought peace to the region?” Hua asked. China hopes that the US can seriously reflect on its use of force and military interventions and stop wantonly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries under the guise of democracy and human rights, and undermining the peace and stability of others, Hua said.As Afghanistan’s largest neighbor, China has always respected Afghanistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, adhered to non-interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs and pursued a friendly policy toward the entire Afghan people, Hua noted. China has always played a constructive role in promoting a political solution to the Afghan issue and maintained contacts and communications with the Afghan Taliban and other sides on the basis of full respect for the country’s sovereignty and the wishes of various factions in Afghanistan, Hua said.Hua noted that China encourages the Afghan Taliban to follow a moderate religious policy, work on the building of an inclusive political structure and pursue a peaceful and friendly foreign policy, especially with neighboring countries.(Aug 17, 2021, Global Times, US role in Afghanistan lies in destruction, not construction: Chinese FM)State-controlled media said the rapid U.S. pullout should serve as a warning to the people of Taiwan: They shouldn’t rely on U.S. protection in their long-running dispute with China.“After the fall of the Kabul regime, the Taiwan authorities must be trembling,” Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-controlled Global Times, said on Twitter.And China’s official news agency, Xinhua, called the U.S. “the world’s largest exporter of unrest,” adding that “its hegemonic policy of ‘only me, rather than the world’ has caused too many human tragedies.”(Aug 17, 2021, NBC News，Chinese state media rips U.S. over chaotic Afghanistan exit)
